Officer Defended

Published: Monday, April 12, 1999

I offer my sincere condolences to the Joseph De La Rosa family. I am praying for them and Officer Tracy Taylor and can imagine the pain and remorse he is feeling. I was a police officer for six years and involved in a shooting in November 1994.

Officers are trained to respond to unreasonable situations in a "reasonable" way. They are given a "use of force" scale, ranging from an officer's presence to deadly force. The use of pepper spray comes between the officer placing his hands on a person to make an arrest and using his baton. An officer may not have time to move through every step of this scale.

Pepper spray does not always work. Studies show that people under the influence of narcotics or who are mentally ill will not be affected by it. If the person is holding a knife, an officer must assume pepper spray will not work and move to the next response, pulling his weapon. If the spray hadn't worked, then Officer Taylor would have put himself, other officers and the family in danger.

That Officer Taylor attempted to kick the knife away, shows that he wanted to end the situation with the least amount of violence possible. When Mr. De La Rosa lunged at him, Officer Taylor was forced to defend himself. The taking of a human life is never something an officer wants, but it was a choice that was made by Mr. De La Rosa, not Officer Taylor.